Doge

Promo of the prior years.
Races start Sept 17 - no idea why it didn't paste correctly in the title.
https://bergen2017.no/

:38 Junior World Champion and former kid's teammate - 19 year old Brandon going for the U23.

Doge

This is unlike last year. A little steep in the middle - 9.1%.

Kevindale

Here's a good Steephill.tv link that is updated daily with lots of good links to the individual races, etc.

xg5a

The "mens elite" time trial has a climb tacked onto the end:
https://www.uci.ch/mm/Photo/Photos/Ph...12_8-LG-HD.jpg

diphthong

thinking trentin or sagan.

Kevindale

Seems like Sagan has become the marked man in these races, and he sometimes reacts badly to that, unless it's a bunch sprint. I agree it'll be interesting to see Trentin take his Vuelta form into this race. Surprisingly, I haven't seen anyone else mention him as a favorite (it's all the big name sprinters, or Sagan/GVA, Viviani, etc.).

diphthong

if it finished significantly uphill, i'd go with gilbert or gva or alaphilipe but since it doesn't, sagan, gaviria, trentin or viviani are all likely suspects. kristoff maybe if everything works out.
i think the true sprinters like kittel will be out. if this was back in the day, i'd be thinking a zabel or later day jalabert vs a mc ewen or cipollini or petacchi.

Wildwood 

In an interview, Tom Boonen picked Wellens. Sited his form in winning a recent race.

dstrong 

I've enjoyed watching the juniors, u-23 and elite races. The weather has certainly played a role and I'm looking forward to tomorrow. Hopefully the weather is good. The Dutch have been killin' it. Good for them...having to wear those wooden shoes and all that.

Kevindale

Wow, that was a loooong race. I woke up in the middle of the night to let the dogs out, checked in on the race at the midway point, read through the Cycling News text feed, then slept 3 more hours and still got up in time to watch the last 15 km live. Sadly, the camera coverage completely failed at a crucial point, so that sucked a ton of drama out of the finish. I'm very happy with the result, but there was no chance to enjoy the tension and excitement of the final miles.

Doge

Juniors had the fastest average speed by >1kph.

Caretaker

I should hope so.

The men's juniors rode 136km and four laps of the hilly town section, whereas the Men's elite rode 277km and 11 laps of the hilly town section with the same type of differences in course for the women's.

dstrong 

Well...there's that.

Kevindale

I was just looking back at this. Wow, you called it. I'm impressed. You had 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 8th. If Graviria hadn't made two futile surges in the last couple of km, and if Trentin had been just a touch stronger, you might have called 1-4.

Caretaker

The only thing he called is Sagan as one of the favourites to win. Nothing impressive in that.

Kevindale

Boy, you are an ever-lovin' ray of sunshine in every thread I see you.

Ooga-booga named 5 riders he thought were favorites. He nailed the top 2, 3 of the top 4, and 4 of the top 8. Only one of the 5 picks didn't factor in the finish. He also named some riders that others touted as favorites, that he didn't think were likely to win, and he was right there, too. Frankly, it's an impressive set of predictions.

He also made great picks in the fantasy grand tour league. O-B seems to know his riders. Maybe it was just dumb luck, but regardless, I'm impressed.

I'm curious, Caretaker - why take the time to spread negativity? Usually you're being a grump for a reason, but here it just seems utterly pointless. Do you consider yourself the Pro Cycling thread policeman?

Caretaker

Why do you take such a negative view of my accurate post?
He was picking the winner, gave five possibles/probables and one of his picks won.
You should really try to be more positive.

Kevindale

Your post wasn't accurate. You are argumentative for it's own sake. Welcome to my ignore list.

diphthong

i'm still miffed that i spaced on matthews. totally forgot about him. had i remembered him, woulda picked him top 5 since the course favored him, sagan and trentin.
was most surprised by ben swift's showing.

Kevindale

I was surprised by Swift, too. I wasn't familiar with him at all. I guess he's been buried in the Sky crew, carrying water for their stars. Nice to see someone come out into the light like that.

diphthong

sky is probably the worst team for any sprinter with ambition. it'll be interesting to see what kinda havoc viviani wreaks with quick step.

dstrong 

yes ooga...i think you need to take next year's fantasy season off and re-evaluate your methods for choosing riders!

atbman

He's often been there or thereabouts and has missed a few stages. Very fast, perhaps not one of the greatest sprinters and not a climber, but can get over the hills pretty well. He used to win most of his age group races across all disciplines (BMX excepted) in British Schools Cycling Association regional and national champs and was the right age to be picked up by Brit. Cycling when they began to put resources into youth racing.

Was chatting to his mum once. She said that they were a bit worried that he was doing a bit too much, so they took his bike of him for a week. Spent a couple of hours every evening in-line skating up and down the street instead.

He got his bike back.

diphthong

dstrong...you're more than welcome to run the show...agitate, cajole & motivate the entire fantasy season.
feel free and let me know if you wanna. still kinda miffy there were only six (six!!!!) participants for the giro which was about 14 fewer than usual. can usually count on 20 or so contestants for the giro and the vuelta with 30-40 for the tour.

love the spring classics (fantasy participation) as much as anyone but there are a lot of moving parts in a short time frame and this forum hasn't been particularly nimble in that regard so i hesitate to press the issue.

i tend to like the all or nothing riders or the consistent riders. hopefully between both lots, i'll cover the bases.